Privacy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Privacy can be an elusive concept. Privacy sometimes refers to solitude or physical isolation, though residents of densely populated cities can lead private or anonymous lives. Privacy also refers to not having information about oneself revealed to others. In Olmstead v. U.S. (1928) Justice Brandeis captured these senses by referring to privacy as the “right to be let alone.” The term is also used to refer to a right to be free to make decisions about one’s life, such as whether to have an abortion, or what lifestyle to adopt. In Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court struck down a law criminalizing abortions by claiming it violated a right to privacy. Here privacy refers to autonomy, which is distinct from informational privacy or anonymity.

William Prosser identifies four distinct torts of privacy invasion: intrusion upon seclusion, such as eavesdropping; public disclosure of embarrassing facts; publicity that puts one in a false light in the public’s eye; and appropriation of one’s name or likeness. Several of these torts can be seen as a violation not of privacy but of some other right: property rights, in the case of appropriation of one’s name; or rights over one’s person, including a right not to be defamed. The philosopher Judith Jarvis Thompson articulates the controversial view that the wrongness of every violation of the right to privacy can be explained by appealing to these other rights and that there is no need to refer to a right to privacy.

Invasions of privacy can be mere inconveniences, as when telemarketers or e-mail spammers intrude upon seclusion. They can also be more invasive, such as when employers monitor keystrokes or phone conversations, when the police search garbage or attach GPS devices to cars to track movements, or federal agents obtain electronic communication transactional records of those suspected of terrorism. If such invasions are permitted, individuals may be forced to shred their papers before discarding them, or restrict what they type or say, where they drive, or which Web sites they visit. Some intrusions upon privacy can be extremely invasive, such as when police conduct body cavity searches or require urine samples for drug testing.

Not everyone values privacy when it’s understood as a state of limited access to a person. Privacy has been criticized as perpetuating inhibitions, deterring relations with others and preventing ties to one’s community, and most importantly, providing a subversive shield for wrongdoers. Many economists argue that inhibiting accurate information flow encourages fraud and is inefficient. People, governments, businesses, and other organizations all have a need for information that must be weighed against the value of privacy.

The Value Of Privacy

Some argue that privacy should be valued because privacy protects only deceivers and criminals and that innocent people should not care if information about them is exposed. However, there are reasons why even people with nothing to hide may value privacy. Charles Fried argues that the ability to selectively reveal information about oneself and keep secrets is essential for forming intimate relations with friends and loved ones. Fried also argues that respecting privacy is an important way to convey trust: “A man cannot know that he is trusted unless he has a right to act without constant surveillance so that he knows he can betray the trust” (212–213). Others argue that respecting a person’s privacy is an important means to respect a person’s individuality and autonomy. Alan Westin writes that a loss of privacy threatens one’s core self. He points to instances of suicide and emotional breakdown that result from exposure by government or the media. Edward Bloustein and Jeffrey Reiman each argue that respecting someone’s privacy is a way to respect an individual as a person. Invasions of privacy are an “affront to personal dignity” (Bloustein, 180) and privacy a “precondition for personhood” (Reiman, 310).

Members of different societies value privacy to different degrees. American attitudes toward privacy have been contrasted with those from Britain and Germany, and anthropologists note that in some societies, doors are left open all day and anonymity is virtually impossible. The privacy a person can expect is a function of architecture and social practices that vary across time and place. But even in societies with strong antiprivacy norms, such as colonial New England, privacy is valued to some degree.

Legal Rights To Privacy

Laws attempt to balance interest in privacy and the need for information. The Fourth Amendment protects the right of people “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and requires probable cause for a war rant to be issued. It was adopted largely as a response to writs of assistance that empowered officers and their assistants to search at will any place they suspected uncustomed goods to be; they were general warrants with no particular description of the objects of the search, and no probable cause was required for their issuance. In Katz v. U.S. (1967) the Supreme Court interpreted the amendment to mean that the government may conduct searches without a warrant if the search does not violate a reasonable expectation of privacy.

People cannot generally expect privacy if they are in a public place, for example, although they may reasonably expect privacy in a conversation if they are whispering in an uncrowded marketplace, out of earshot of anyone else. The Supreme Court and other federal courts have upheld the aerial surveillance of a person’s backyard (California v. Ciraolo, 1986), and use of beepers to track a vehicle’s location (U.S. v. Knotts, 1983). Also upheld are searches of garbage (California v. Greenwood, 1988), prison cells (Bell v. Wolfish, 1979), the property of trespassers onto government-owned land (U.S. v. Ruckman, 1986), and persons in plain view. These searches and surveillance were said to violate no reasonable expectation of privacy and are therefore permissible even without a warrant. However, the court has invalidated searches using thermal imaging devices to detect heat usage in homes (Kyllo v. U.S., 2001) or electronic eavesdropping of conversations in public phone booths (Katz v. U.S., 1967) because they violate reasonable expectations of privacy and therefore require a warrant.

Bibliography:

Bloustein, Edward J., “Privacy as an aspect of human dignity: An Answer to Dean Prosser.” In Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy: An Anthology, edited by Ferdinand David Schoeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984: 300-316.
Flaherty, David. Privacy in Colonial New England. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1967.
Fried, Charles. “Privacy (a moral analysis).” In Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy: An Anthology, edited by Ferdinand David Schoeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984: 203–222. In text citation for quotation: pp. 212-213
Gregor,Thomas. “Exposure and Seclusion: A Study of Institutionalized Isolation among the Mehinaku Indians of Brazil.” In Secrecy: A Cross-Cultural Perspective, edited by Stanton Tefft. New York: Human Sciences Press, 1980.
Reiman, Jeffrey H., “Privacy, intimacy, and personhood,” In Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy: An Anthology, edited by Ferdinand David Schoeman. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984: 156-202.
Schoeman, Ferdinand. Privacy and Social Freedom. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Siprut, Joseph. “Privacy through Anonymity: An Economic Argument for Expanding the Right of Privacy in Public Places.” Pepperdine Law Review 33 (2006): 311.
Spiro, Herbert. “Privacy in Comparative Perspective.” In Privacy, Nomos 13, edited by Roland Pennock and John Chapman. New York: Atherton Press, 1971.
Thompson, Judith Jarvis. “The Right to Privacy.” Philosophy and Public Affairs 4, no. 4 (1975): 295–314.
Tunick, Mark. “Privacy.” In Practices and Principles: Approaches to Ethical and Legal Judgment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
Westin, Alan. Privacy and Freedom. New York: Atheneum, 1967.

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